We had this toy–sort of like a marble track on a larger scale, with these hard plastic balls that you’d make a track for. It was kind of an exercise in physics, figuring out how much height you needed at the beginning to build up enough speed to get through the whole thing.
The pieces had little holes and pegs on each end, to hook them together. The cubes had tracks going either straight through them or curving, and there were long pieces that could be used as a flat track, or two of them could be put together to make a vertical tube. (These were absolute murder to step on in the middle of the night.) Some pieces were blue and yellow, and some were green and orange. (We might have had two sets–there were quite a lot of pieces.)
My mom is pretty sure that “Cubes and Tubes” is the real name, and she thinks we bought it at a regular toy store. I can’t find anything like this on Google.
Were they sort of translucent plastic in different colors? I spent HOURS playing with something like this at school. I’d hurry through math worksheets to have some extra time.
Your mom was right. It was called cubes and tubes and it was so much fun! My mom bought the last three sets they had at the toy store back in the 70’s. Apparently it wasn’t selling too well, she thought because it was kind of expensive. I’ve been looking for it for years to add more sets to mine but so far, no luck. Most people don’t seem to know what I’m talking about. You’re the first person in decades to know about cubes and tubes.
That doesn’t look like 1970’s packaging. I grew up then too and I recall lots of colors on the toy boxes. Never had this toy. It looks like it would have been fun. Remember Tip It? We played it several times a week.
Reported. aztec7fan, the rules here only allow posts of objects for sales in the Marketplace forum and you need to be a paid member to start a thread there.
Oh yes, I remember Tip It. That’s from the 60’s, I think. My favorite toys were Vac-U-Form. We made Creepy Crawlers with plasi-goop too. I think they baked over the Vac-U-Form stove.
Another fun toy from the olden days was a Girder and Panelconstruction set. I think verisons of this are still made today.
Interesting, I had part of a Cubes & Tubes set (never knew it was called that!) but not any of the balls. I think my mother picked it up at a garage sale somewhere. My brother and I used the blocks to build things.
A similar marble and track set I had (still have it in fact) is the Creative Playthings Multiway Rollway. My set is a more recent (late 1970s) vintage.
THAT’s the one I had, and I loved it, played with it more than about any other toy except my Legos and the hundreds of (used but washed) tiny plastic communion cups I snagged from our church.
I have at least two sets of the Cubes and Tubes/Tubes and Cubes, one of my sets has a motorized lift to raise the balls up so that they can travel down the shutes. I have been wondering if there perhaps is a market for these toys since they appear to be rather rare.
